Commission Mulls Solution to Thailand’s Election Impasse

BANGKOK—Candidates hoping to run in elections planned for Feb. 2 in Thailand, urged the country’s Election Commission on Thursday to extend the candidate registration period after blockades by protesters prevented them from meeting Wednesday’s registration deadline.

European Pressphoto Agency

Thai office workers walk next to an election campaign poster for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra with a banner that reads, ‘In Democracy We Trust,’ in Bangkok, on Jan. 2.

For more than a week, anti-government protesters have blockaded candidate registration sites in many of Thailand 77’s provinces, preventing more than 120 candidates from signing up to contest next month’s election.

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As of Wednesday, the last day candidates were allowed to register, names had only been submitted for 94% of the 500 available seats in the country’s House of Representatives. If 95% of the seats are not filled, it could delay the House from reopening.

Twenty-four constituencies in the five southern provinces that serve as the support base for the opposition Democrat party, which is leading the anti-government protests, failed to register any candidates.

Thanawut Wichaidit, a candidate for the ruling Pheu Thai Party in one of those provinces, Surat Thani, called on the election commission, which is tasked with organizing the vote, to fix the problem.

“It is the Election Commission’s responsibility to ensure that the vote can go ahead,” he said.

The blockades are the latest attempt by anti-government protesters to force Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step aside and allow an unelected council to run the country.

They began after Ms. Yingluck dissolved the lower house of Parliament last month in an attempt to ease mounting pressure caused by ongoing street rallies that have disrupted her government’s operations.

The protesters say Ms. Yingluck is under the influence of her older brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup. He has been living in self-imposed exile to avoid a corruption conviction he says is politically motivated. Still, Mr. Thaksin, and by extension his family, has retained high levels of support among large portions of the Thai population.

Among protesters, Ms. Yingluck’s decision to call fresh elections on Feb. 2 has been viewed as a strategic move to capitalize on the popularity of her government’s pro-poor subsidies and spending plans.

Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former member of the Democrat Party, has rejected the planned polls, saying Thailand needs to complete a political reform process before voters can go to the polling booths.

The Democrats have boycotted the vote by refusing to register any candidates. Since the election registration period began on Dec. 22, the process has also been marred by violent clashes and blockades by protesters, particularly in southern Thailand. Two people – a protester and a police officer – have been killed in separate clashes in Bangkok.

In a letter submitted to the Election Commission on Thursday, Mr. Thanawut and candidates from at least two parties also asked commissioners to map out safe locations where they can register.

After a lengthy meeting to consider the request and to review all election issues, the Election Commission’s secretary said the body was unable to reach a conclusion and would meet again on Friday.

“There are a lot of legal aspects that need to be looked into carefully before the commissioners can make a decision,” Puchong Nutrawong, the Election Commission’s secretary-general, said at a press conference.

Mr. Suthep, meanwhile, has urged his followers to “shut down” Bangkok on Jan. 13 in an effort to derail the elections. Ms. Yingluck has considered imposing an emergency decree in Bangkok to handle Mr. Suthep’s shutdown plan, National Security Council Secretary-General Paradorn Pattanatabut said Thursday. The decree would allow authorities to censor information, impose curfews and detain suspects without formal charges for up to 90 days.

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